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Turnbull's Netanyahu-Beersheeba treacle

By Stuart Rees - posted Monday, 10 April 2017


The oft repeated claim that Israel is a democracy is a lie. Palestinian citizens of Israel are denied rights to land and property.Residents of the West Bank are subject to mass arrests and imprisonment in Israeli jails. They are deprived of shelter by a systematic policy of mass house demolitions. They are crippled by ongoing collective punishments, expropriation and destruction of property, agricultural land and crops. The continued establishment of illegal settlements, housing up to 700,000 illegal settlers, represents ethnic cleansing which makes Palestinians refugees in their own lands.

Boasting about Australia's and Israel's joint respect for the rule of law Turnbull manages to conceal the Israeli laws which ensure an apartheid system.

There's civil law for citizens of Israel, residency restrictions governing Palestinians living in Jerusalem, but giving them no legal standing to challenge Israeli law. There's military law governing Palestinians living under occupation and in refugee camps, and a Law of Return which permits every Jewish person to emigrate to Israel and obtain Israeli citizenship yet denies the same protection to Palestinians.

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These Multicultural Societies

Still on horseback, apparently exhilarated, the Australian Prime Minister declares that both Australia and Israel are 'successful multicultural societies.'

Successful ? A recent OECD report indicates that poverty in Israel is more widespread than in any 30 OECD countries, and that social divisions go far deeper than in records of income and employment. For example, public spending on education per child in Palestinian localities is one third lower than in predominantly Jewish municipalities.

If Turnbull wanted to identify the similarities between Israel and Australia, he might have referred to the quality of life of each country's Indigenous peoples. He could have compared the poor health, mortality, and rates of imprisonment of Australia's Indigenous citizens with the plight of Bedouin inhabitants of Israel. Around half of Bedouins live in villages defined as 'unrecognized' with limited or no electricity, water or sewage. Four out of five Bedouins are estimated to live in poverty.

Basking in the achievements of Israel, perhaps Prime Minister Turnbull could not comprehend that convenient camouflage of the separate but equal racism that also used to dominate US politics.

The record of the Israeli army slaughtering Gazans in the invasions in 2009 and 2014, is also ignored with the usual mother-and-apple-pie assertion that Israel has a right to defend itself and its citizens. That part of the speech is followed by a statement intended to make Turnbull sound Churchillian, 'We stand with Israel as we always have – an all-weather friend.' Not even a slight reflection about justice. Who cares about justice when flattery is the name of the game?

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Bibi ! We are 'seeking to emulate the innovation success of Israel – the original Start Up Nation.'

Turnbull gives justifiable credit to Israel's achievements in technology, but any concern for human rights is displaced by reverence for cybersecurity, for trade, for business investment and for cooperation between Australian and Israeli universities.

Water as a Weapon

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About the Author

Stuart Rees is Professor Emeritus of the University of Sydney and Founder of the Sydney Peace Foundation. He is the former Director of the Sydney Peace Foundation (1998-2011) and of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (1988-2008), and a Professor of Social Work (1978-2000) at the University of Sydney.

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Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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